misplaced || l. valdez

26 || choices, choices... oh also piper's dad is in danger

° ~ •. ♆ chapter twenty-six ♆ .• ~ °
"choices, choices... oh also piper's dad is in danger"

Mari and Leo were playing chopsticks when Piper woke up.

"Oh god." Piper said, her teeth chattering. "He turned me to gold!"

"You're ok now." Jason leaned over and wrapped another blanket around her.

"Leo? Mari?" Piper managed.

"Present and un-gold-ified." Leo said. "I got the precious metal treatment too."

"Ditto." Mari said. "I came out of it first, but we had to dunk you in the river. Sorry about that."

"You've got hypothermia." Jason said. "We risked as much nectar as we could. Coach Hedge did a little nature magic—"

"Sports medicine." The coach bragged. "Kind of a hobby of mine. Your breath might smell like wild mushrooms and Gatorade for a few days, but it'll pass. You probably won't die. Probably."

The cave they were in fell silent for a minute. The campfire blazed, dim light flickering against the rock walls. The wind howled as the snowstorm swirled outside.

"So," Piper said. "How did you beat Midas?"

Jason told her the story, putting most of it down to luck.

The coach snorted. "The kid's being modest. You should've seen him. Hi-yah! Slice! Boom with the lightning!"

"Coach, you weren't even there." Mari said, continuing her game of chopsticks. "You were outside eating the lawn."

But the satyr was just warming up. "Then I came in with my club, and we dominated that room. Afterward, I told him, 'Kid, I'm proud of you! If you could just work on your upper body strength—'"

"Coach?" said Jason.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up, please."

"Sure." The coach sat down and started chewing his cudgel.

Jason put his hand on Piper's forehead and checked her temperature. "Leo, can you stoke the fire?"

"On it!" Leo summoned a baseball-sized clump of flames and lobbed it into the campfire.

"I harnessed a storm spirit to bring us to Colorado." Jason explained to Piper. "They didn't like it— went a little faster than I wanted, almost crashed us into the mountainside before I could get them back in the bag."

"See, I told him it was a bad idea!" Mari said. "He was lucky I could talk Amity out of dropping us."

"Who's Amity?" Piper asked.

Jason rolled his eyes. "The horse."

"Oook." Piper said. "Why are we here, though?"

Leo sniffed. "That's what I asked him."

Jason gazed into the storm as if watching for something. "That misty wind trail we saw yesterday? It was still in the sky, though it had faded a lot. I followed it until I couldn't see it anymore. Then— honestly I'm not sure. I just felt like this was the right place to stop."